Thursday, May 16, 2013

The
following text is a free translation of “Bir
Eylemci İçin Sokak Rehberi” published anonymously in
Fraksiyon on April 30th,
2012. It is aimed at providing a list of suggestions for protesters.

Never forget
that the state uses psychological violence for preventing you from
going to the street. Trust your companions and feel your legitimate
actions.

Have a small
action committee. Try to stick together as much as you can. Keep
communication channels open.

Beware
provocations. Even a few motivated people can become natural leaders
of a mass demonstrations. Come up with ideas to maintain the action,
and let your creativity flow.

The strongest
side of an action is its unpredictability. Do not act according to
how the state would predict.

Spread the
action. Tell by-walkers about the action and expose state violence.

Be careful with
your reactions towards objects that are not directly state's tools
of violence or symbols thereof. Choose your targets wisely so that
those who do not take part do not get confused about your acts.

Put sneakers on
in order to facilitate running.

Put on clothes
that would cover most part of your skin in order to protect yourself
from sun and teargas. Light raincoats recommended.

Get eye
protection. Take care that it is resistant to cracking. Sunglasses,
goggles or gas masks recommended.

Have gas masks
or a scarf and eyeglasses.

Take light extra
clothes. (in case of yours get wet, painted etc.)

A hat or a
helmet for protection from sunlight and from chemicals.

In case of
direct contact with any kind of chemicals, never put on petroleum
jelly, mineral oil, oil-based suncream or moisturizer. Only if it is
summer time and you will be exposed to direct sunlight for a long
time, put a little bit of suncream (even if it is oil-based),
because teargas on sunburned areas hurts a lot.

Never have
contact lenses on.

How to protect yourself

Apple vinegar is one of the
simplest ways for breathing. You can prepare scarfs submersed into
apple vinegar and keep them in your bag. In case of teargas attacks,
cover your mouth and nose tightly with the scarf. If you don't have
apple vinegar, lemon juice can be used.

In case of a teargas attack,
try to climb up the hill as much as you can, and never kneel down
even if you are exhausted.

When exposed to teargas, clean
your nose, gargle, cough and spit, try not to swallow it.

Never rub your eyes.

You can prepare a baking soda
for your skin and carry it with you. (around 5% baking powder in
water) When exposed to teargas, you can treat your skin with the
soda to neutralize the chemicals.

Another method for your skin
is to scrub it with alcohol (pay special attention to keep alcohol
away from your eyes) and then put canola oil. To do this, get a
sponge, immerse the oil in the sponge and apply it to the parts
exposed to teargas.

To clean your eyes from
chemicals, you can use milk. Take half a teacup of milk, tilt your
head backwards, drop a little bit of the milk to clean your eyes.

Spread your arms wide, make
movements.

Take off all the clothes with
teargas and wash them with detergent. If you cannot wash them
immediately, take them off, put them in a plastic bag, and leave
them outdoors (such as in your balcony).

If you cannot go home right
after being exposed to teargas, get rid off your clothes as soon as
possible (including underwear). Carrying extra clothes recommended.

Take a cold shower. Before
taking the shower, pay attention not to touch your eyes, your face,
people around you or even the objects in your house. Wait five
minutes under cold shower without using soap or without rubbing your
skin. Only after the cold shower, use mild water and soap. Do not
take a bath.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Editor's
note: This is a compilation of news items and articles originally
published in Turkish. With the exception of the introduction, we do
not claim any intellectual nor political credit for the text. All the
analyses belong to the authors of the texts referred to at the end of
each paragraph. Yet, the mistakes and misinterpretations are due to
our misunderstanding of the analyses.

On
Saturday, May 11th, two car explosions were reported in Reyhanlı,
Turkey. The first numbers were 4 dead and 20 injuries. The number of
deaths later increased to 8, then to 22, and then to 46, and then
came the media blackout issued by the government, prohibiting any
kind of journalist activities on the matter. In general, such big
events cannot be analyzed without a big margin of error due to
macro-political secrecies, but this time we do not even know how many
citizens lost their lives. There is a widespread rumor, claimed to be
reported by local hospitals, that the actual number is 177 deaths,
and as for injuries hundred seems to be the significant digit.

This
news item aims at separating evidence-based factual information from
speculative analysis. This is not to underrate political analysis in
any way. Due to media blackout accompanied with auto-censorship in
mainstream media, it became especially difficult to reach proper
information on the matter. Therefore, we have had hard time preparing
a well-designed analysis.

Facts
and observations

After
the explosions, government officials pointed the Assad regime and so
did the media. Vice prime minister Beşir Atalay claimed that the
investigations concluded that Al Muhaberat, an organization allied
with the Syrian government forces, is responsible for the attacks.
Minister of Internal Affairs Muammer Güler confirmed Atalay's
statement.[1]
On Sunday, 10 people were arrested for investigations. The
authorities did not let anyone enter the crime scene, including
parliamentarians of the opposition parties. A deputy reported that
the excuse was that they were collecting evidence, yet what the
deputies observed was that the police was destroying evidence with
heavy construction equipment. [2]

The
locals are outraged due to the complete indifference in media, as
almost all TV channels continued showing their prime time programs,
ranging from sitcoms to reality shows. One local, when noticed the
camera of a BBC journalist after a funeral, complained “What are
you doing? We warned you hundreds of times before, you ignored it.
Look, I am an enemy of this state. Let them put me in jail, I hope
they do.” Another one reacted “So many people died, no one is
sharing our sorrow. TV channels are shouting at us with their
entertainment shows. What kind of mourning is this?” [3]

The
National Intelligence Service (MİT) claimed that the bombs were
loaded in Ar-Raqqah, Syria. This does not seem plausible due to the
followings: Since March, Ar-Raqqah is under control of the Al Nusra
Front, an organization affiliated to Al Qaida. It is a town that is
300 km away from the Yayladağı border gate, which MİT claimed the
cars crossed the border. The area is strictly controlled both by the
Syrian state and by the rebels. Furthermore, this would imply that
two cars loaded with explosives managed to pass through the border
gates of Turkey, which in fact turns out to be the only reasonable
part of the narrative. [4]

The
government officials repeatedly argued that this was the first time
the Syrian civil war affected Turkish citizens. This is plain wrong,
recalling the terrorist attack in Gaziantep in August 2012 killing
nine [5]
(successfully covered up by the government), and the Free Syrian Army
militants who tried to cross the borders without passport check and
get into a conflict with the security forces on May 2nd, killing one
security official in Akçakale. [6]

What
is actually happening?

There
are two scenarios voiced by the political analysts.

First
is that the Syrian regime is responsible for the attacks, menacing
the Turkish government for supporting and sheltering the rebels. The
aim is to put Turkey's Syrian policies into question in public
opinion and therefore isolate Turkey's aggressive interventionist
policies with respect to Syria. As Turkey would not get enough
support from the US, who in turn is continuing its bargains with
Russia, Turkey would have to converge into a more cautious position.

The
second scenario is that the attack is a provocation to get Turkey
involved in the conflicts in Syria. Some elements in the opposition
organized the attacks to create outrage and terror in the public,
resulting in a more aggressive policy with respect to Syria. The
government, in search of becoming a “regional leader”, may have
direct role in the attacks. If it doesn't, it would still use this
opportunity with this perspective. In short, the attacks are a kind
of September 11 for Turkey, a provocation to make the government take
active part in the Syrian civil war. [7]

We
observe that the latter scenario is swept away in mainstream media,
both Turkish and international. Yet it is voiced coherently among
Turkish left, and we therefore want to highlight some of its main
features below.

The
explosions were first reported in The Syrian Revolution 2011 website
of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The website said “Explosions in
Reyhanlı. Tens of deaths.” This does not sound natural, given that
Turkish news agencies were yet reporting 4 deaths at that moment.

Yet
there is an important detail. Mohamad Damascian who uploaded the
video to the page commented “Admin, here is the video. Take it
Erdoğan. With Allah's permission, the next bomb will be in Ankara,
pig!” After a while when the Turkish media and the Syrian rebels
started to state that the attacks were done by the Assad regime, the
video was deleted and re-uploaded without the comment.

Yiğit
notes that this website consists of heterogeneous members, belonging
to a variety of opposition groups. Hence, it is not straightforward
to relate a post with a particular organization such as Al Nusra or
FSA.

It
is well known that FSA and Al Nusra have conflicts of interests,
although both are supported and partially controlled by the Turkish
government. After the US and France putting Al Nusra into the list of
terrorist organizations, it is plausible to assume that Turkey may
have put a distance, and that therefore Al Nusra is now attempting to
threaten the government.

Lastly,
Syrian Information Minister Umran Zubi made a press conference on
Sunday and argued that “the real terrorists are Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan and his government”. Zubi firmly rejected any
responsibility and relation to the attacks, calling the dead citizens
“martyrs”. He also underlined that the Turkish government is
trying create an excuse to take the support of NATO for invading
Syria.

The
article of Şenoğuz highlights that the Turkish state is actually
standing firm in its border policies, in a semipermeable way.

The
government first called the refugees “guests”, but later, when
necessary, did not hesitate to send them back through the mined zone
(Kilis, September 2012) or to start shooting at the borders to stop
new comers due to lack of space in the camps. (Kilis, September 2012
and Akçakale, April 2013) When the tensions increased in Hatay, the
city governor sent the refugees out of town. However, the government
did not bother about the tensions caused by the rebels sheltered in
the camps nor did it reallocate military camps to less tense regions.

Furthermore,
it was reported that the security cameras on the streets were off due
to a “system error”. Apparently many of the 73 security cameras
were pointed directly at the explosion zones and this system error
occurred a few days before the explosions. [8]

Finally,
we would like to emphasize that government officials never mentioned
a call for a national mournin (although RedHack organized one by
hacking the website of Hatay City Governance [9]).
This may be considered as a further evidence to argue for the
government's intention for increased aggression.

Now
we are waiting for the Erdoğan and Obama meeting, it seems only
after that will we receive more news/analysis about Reyhanlı
according to the needs of this strategical collaboration.

Saturday, May 11, 2013

The
following text is a free translation of “1
Mayıs'ta cop, gaz ve panzere karşı koyma rehberi” by Onur
Erem, published in Birgün newspaper's website on April 30th,
2013. The original Turkish article aims at providing protesters with
basic information on how to deal with police violence.

>>
Health responsible:
Being exposed to different physical attacks in protests may cause
injuries, asthma crises and similar health problems. The equipment to
handle such situations would slow down the protesters, and many may
not be able to afford them in the first place. Therefore, choose
someone in your group as responsible from health issues. This person
should have with her/him basic material such as lemon, water, milk,
vinegar, gauntlet and band aids. It is very important that this
person does not confront the police and waits at a distance to the
conflict, so that s/he is not detained with all your equipment.

>>
Teargas spray / capsule:
The use of teargas in demonstrations has been increasing drastically.
It creates panic in the mass and scatters the protesters. Health
effects include burning in the eyes, nose, skin, throat and lungs,
fainting, and asthma crises. To protect your self from teargas, you
must have long sleeved clothes and/or rubber raincoats on. On those
parts exposed to direct air (such as your face, hands etc), it is
important to put water-based sun cream. (and definitely not
oil-based)

When
exposed to teargas, use eye drops, water and milk to clean your eyes.
To reduce the effects into minimum, cover your nose with a piece of
cloth (or some cheap sterile mask you can find in pharmacies) that
you submerged into lemon juice or vinegar. (Lemon and vinegar are
acidic, whereas the teargas is basic. They eliminate each other.) You
can apply the vinegar to all the parts of your skin that are exposed
to direct air. Also, using goggles or swim masks would significantly
reduce the negative effects on your eyes. This is especially
important for people who use contact lenses.

Windy
weather conditions reduce the effect of teargas. If you manage to
take the wind to your behind, this would result in teargas going back
to the police.

If
the teargas was not sprayed but shot as a capsule, protect your hand
with a thick cloth/glove, take the capsule and throw it back to the
police. It is essential that your cloth or glove is not plastic.
Plastic material can melt and stick into your hand.

Finally,
it is a better idea not to take a shower before the protest. You can
let your pores close by not taking a shower as long as you can before
a protest. This would reduce the negative effects of teargas in your
body.

>>
Steel baton – stun baton:
The cops may have different batons for different purposes. In
addition to the classic baton that we are familiar with, there are
new varieties such as the expandable baton which suddenly expands
from a 15 cm stick to a 50 cm club, and the stun baton which
administer an electric shock on the target. There are several ways to
avoid batons. First, have put protective clothes on. You can further
reduce the impact by covering your body with plastic bottles, camping
mats etc., or by having life jackets on. Having protective helmets on
may help as well, and not only from batons but also from teargas
capsules.

Another
way to protect yourself from batons is to use a shield. Lids of waste
containers and many other plastic and/or metal material you can find
on the street are in fact good enough to protect you from major
injuries. If you are a large group, an acrylic glass board make it
possible for you to block the batons, stop the cops, and even to
disarm some of them by jamming them into a corner. This material (the
acrylic glass, or more correctly Pleksiglas) is commonly used all
around the world to protect protesters from being dispersed by the
police. In order to hold it strongly, you must produce handles on
your side. Instead of acrylic glass, you can also use big tractor
tyres.

>> The
water cannon: The
acrylic glass boards and shields mentioned above can also be used to
withstand the water cannons. If you don't have any of these
materials, you can try to lead the water cannon into a small street
by following you. Once it enters the narrow streets, the water cannon
loses its maneuver possibilities. Either it takes the risk and you
neutralize one watter cannon, or it doesn't and you got over it.

>>
Action photographer/cameraman: It
is important that several protesters take photos or video recordings
in order to document illegal acts of the police. As mainstream media
generally watches the situation behind the police and from a long
distance, if protesters take photos during the action, many illegal
practices (such as direct exposition of teargas to the face) can be
documented. For those who take this responsibility, we advise to
switch off face detection and similar properties, that could reduce
the speed of the camera and therefore make you lose very precious
seconds. Automatic focus and automatic iso modes, on the other hand,
ease the work because everyone is moving. Instead of looking at the
photos taken, we advise to leave it to the end of the protest, in
order not to lose important scenes. If you suppose the protest to
take a long time, not keeping the resolution at the highest level is
a good idea so that the memory card would not be full in the middle
of the protest.

Friday, May 3, 2013

Editorial note:
This article, “4+4+4
Dinselleşen Eğitim Sisteminin Zararları”
(Part
1 and Part
2) was written collectively by Özgür
Düşünce Hareketi (Free Thought Movement) in Turkey. It makes a
thorough analysis of the recent transformations in the Turkish
education system. We, Out for Beyond, decided to take this
opportunity to provide an account of the educational reforms,
referred to as 4+4+4 in Turkey (meaning that primary education,
secondary school education and high school education will take four
years each). The original text is intended for the Turkish audience,
we therefore shortened the text and added footnotes in the
translation for the English-speaking readers.

We are thankful to
Broyd
who carefully went over the translation, made essential corrections, and read the proofs of the text.

Note on
translation: The original article frequently uses a term, which
literally translates as “religionization”.It is in fact a
well-established political term in Turkey, which is used as an
antonym to “secularization”. It is not the same as reshaping the
education system (or the society in general) in a dogmatic,
non-evidence-based way; because the process is considered as a
planned introduction of religious ideology into the social and
political realms. It is also not Islamization, since it encompasses
many aspects (such as creationism in biology textbooks) that are not
restricted to Islamic ideology. Therefore, we chose to keep the
literal translation “religionization” within quotation marks.

Hundreds of topics
arise under the issue of “Turkey's education problems”. The most
recent of those is the new system, referred as “4+4+4”, which
prescribes an education system of separate schools, each taking four
years. However, in order to understand this last reform and its
singularity, we must first take a broader look at the education
system in large and how it operates.

It is clear that the
AKP1
government pushes the education question as part of the
“religionization” of the country as a whole. A combination of
many factors led AKP to rise and enabled structural transformations
in several items. This can be seen as AKP's desire as well as its
promise. In accordance with the regional changes in the Middle East,
the state paradigm must have changed too, and the arrow of change
pointed against existing progress.

AKP's policies have
always accorded with this wind of change. Hence, the intervention in
the education sector started far earlier than the most recent
reforms. Some concrete indicators are as follows: In contrast to the
huge need for teachers, many unemployed teachers are put aside in the
annual assignments whereas thousands of religion teachers are
employed – and many of them take administrative roles in the
schools. The curricula have been constantly modified in favor of
creationism. The Imam Hatip High Schools2
were taken off from vocational school status. There is an
increasingly common discourse of “prayer rooms for each school”.
The personnel of TÜBİTAK3
were replaced according to government's ideological priorities. In
the rectoral elections in the universities, the president Abdullah
Gül has not complied with the election results and assigned rectors
according to other political preferences.

Although AKP had the
opportunity to demolish the education system in Turkey, the
foundation of this transformation was laid by previous governments.
The greatest damage done to Turkish education system was due to the
military intervention of 12 September 1980. This coup d'etat inserted
religious education into primary schools and secondary schools, a
strategic step towards a more religious society. The 1982
Constitution states in Article 24 that

“Education and
instruction in religion and ethics shall be conducted under state
supervision and control. Instruction in religious culture and moral
education shall be compulsory in the curricula of primary and
secondary schools. Other religious education and instruction shall be
subject to the individual’s own desire, and in the case of minors,
to the request of their legal representatives.”

This article not only
immersed a harmful element into the formal educational curriculum but
also paved the way for small children to be registered into religion
courses not controlled by state authorities.

Let us now take a deep
breath and ask ourselves: Why is the “religionization” of public
education harmful?

It is a well known
pedagogical fact that education should be given according to the
cognitive and physical development of the child. With this in
mind, we have a three-fold answer to our question.

1) Between ages of 6
and 11, children are capable of internalizing only concrete concepts.
They can find simple solutions to simple problems, understand
commands and exercise the necessary actions. What they cannot do is
to contemplate abstract concepts and take actions about them.

In this period, one
can talk to a child about all concrete things such as apples, toys
and cars, but the child cannot make sense of concepts such as god,
heaven, hell, demon and so on. Therefore, such a child would not have
a healthy cognitive development because s/he would grow up in a
terrifying environment where someone who watches her/him all the
time, making notes of every single action and which s/he cannot see
nor touch nor hear, an entity which will punish her/him for all
her/his faults. The child would further grow strong guilt feelings
whenever s/he does something (intentionally or unintentionally) that
the religion orders her/him not to do. This would have deep
psychological consequences.

After age 11, on the
other hand, the child enters a critical stage in cognitive skills
where s/he develops critical thinking skills. Therefore, the teaching
of dogmatic, unquestionable knowledge would hinder this development.

2) Another harmful
aspect of the “religionization” of education was deliberately
introduced by the policy makers. The 1982 Constitution defines the
religion course as “Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge”,
thereby implying that morality is a concept directly linked to
religion. Via compulsory religious courses, the borders of “morality”
are framed and restricted by a particular sect (the Sunni
interpretation) of a particular religion (Islam). This approach not
only indoctrinates the unfounded claim of “no religion means no
morality” but also undermines the education of morality and of
religion.

3) As a direct
consequence of secularism, public education should see to it that
each individual is provided with the critical thinking skills that
would enable her/him to reach her/his own conclusions about the world
and give her/him the possibilities of self realization.

We have been observing
the harmful consequences of the “religionization” of education
for a long time, especially with the theory of evolution. This
“spiteful of science” attitude will increase with the recently
introduced religion courses. For instance, the new “Basic Religious
Knowledge” course includes phrases like “the fine tuning in the
universe”, “perfect human”, “intentional creation” as
chapters' morals. These statements are not supported by evidence, and
in fact contradict with it. The same course aims at teaching that
“the aim of the creation of human is to worship Allah”. It is
further clear that whenever there is conflict between the content of
this course and other courses, the values and the information in the
other courses will be censured.

The
new education system surpasses the 1982 Constitution. Not content
with the so-called “Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge”
course, the system introduces “Arabic” in primary school and
“Basic Religious Knowledge”, “The Holy Koran” and “The Life
Of the Prophet Mohammed”, thereby teaching religious knowledge
continuously. We should emphasize that by religious knowledge is
meant the theological knowledge of Islam's Sunni sect.4
One example of this approach can be seen in the textbook for the
course “The Life Of the Prophet Mohammed”, aimed at ninth grade
students:

“By
linking chastity with faith, Our High Prophet states that pudicity
and faith are inseparable. On this issue, he spoke 'As a matter of
fact, pudicity and faith are holistically united. If one disappears,
the other disappears as well.' As can be understood from this hadith,
pudicity and faith are closely connected to each other. When one is
nonexistent, there is a danger for the other to vanish too.”5

Yet
another problem of this system is that the Koran will be read in
Arabic for the course “The Holy Koran”, as in the religious
courses enforced by the state, due to the ridiculous claim that the
book has its own language. However, for someone to understand the
Koran or any other book (independent of whether it is considered holy
or not) it is essential that one reads it in a language that one is
competent in and at an age when one can grasp its content. It is
clear that the (elective) Arabic course would not suffice for the
students to comprehend the book properly and therefore what is
expected from them is that they memorize it. This is manifested
publicly several times. One instance is that the 85th page
of the instructor's book for “The Holy Koran” course gives hints
on “some principles on how to make surah apprehension
easier” where it is explained how the students can easily
“memorize” those surah's.
Moreover, Ömer Dinçer, the Minister of Education, confessed in an
interview6
that the students “would not understand what they read”:

“But
the Parliament declared: The teaching of Koran and the Life of Our
Prophet. We will teach it in secondary school and in high school. We
will teach how to read the Koran like Turkish. After all, Arabic is
an elective course. We will not teach Arabic. It is a
different issue to read Koran based on the Arabic alphabet in the
Arabic language. This means, the child will learn how to read a word
written with Arabic letters, but the thing s/he will read will be
Koran. We will create a curriculum. S/he will read but will not
understand. After all, the majority of those who read the Koran do
not understand it, they read it as a holy book.”

The
“religionization” is not the only problem arising from the new
4+4+4 system. At first glance, we notice the following: The system
lets children of age 5-5.5 enter the primary schools, when they are
not physiologically ready to hold pencils nor cognitively prepared to
understand and implement commands. As a consequence, primary
education is now reduced, in practice, to three years. Furthermore,
by fifth grade, the classes will be given by branch teachers,
resulting in reallocation and unemployment of many teachers. Also,
the early start to schooling without any infrastructural preparations
will result in overly crowded classrooms. We would like to give some
examples of complaints in order to make the point clearer.

The
Education Workers' Union released a declaration7,
emphasizing that the separation of primary and secondary education in
a manner that is not based on pedagogical principles would imply an
increase in child employment and child brides. The way is now legally
cleared away for the seclusion and forced marriage of female
children, as child brides are generally of age 13, 14 and 15.

According
to an interview published in haber.sol.org.tr on September 21st,
2012, Ertan Uysal, the chairman of the Education Workers' Union in
Tokat, made the following remark:

“...
while the mere existence of religious culture courses in private
schools is controversial, it is a big problem to introduce forced
elective courses on religion. This imposition of religious education
on students who would primarily need courses such as arts, music and
sports resembles the paradigm of the Middle Ages.”8

Much
earlier than this interview, Hürriyet newspaper made a news item9
on the letters sent to the Ministry of Education by the parents. Here
are a few items from those letters:

“ -
I don't want my 5-year old child to get on and off the bus by himself
to reach home.

-
I don't want my child to be pressed by the class teacher who is
forced to finish the annual curriculum.

-
I don't want my 5-year old child to be open to the same risks as the
students of age 12-13.

-
While 7-year old children are having difficulties, I don't want my
5-year old child to start primary school.

The
“religionization” of education is a big problem. When this
transformation is accompanied by unhealthy, inconvenient practices,
it may give rise to a social disaster. In order to prevent this, it
is urgently needed to sweep away religious ideologies, not only from
education but from all levels of the state affairs.

As
Özgür Düşünce Hareketi, we believe that several reforms should
be made.

Mixed-sex
education should never be questioned. The religious separation of
the two genders is one of the most important causes of gender
inequalities and male violence. Furthermore, children that grew up
in an environment where men and women are categorically separated
would have difficulties in making sense of transgender identities
and would be conditioned to transphobia.

Religious
knowledge should be presented in the context of the history courses,
under the title of history of religions and then one item being
Islam. If religion teachers will be trained, they should get proper
pedagogical formation.

Imam
Hatip Schools should be abolished, as they give the teaching of the
practices of a selected religion.

The
so-called elective but practically compulsory religion courses
should be abolished. Religious practices should not be taught to
non-adults.

The
new regulations on the dress code that promotes the imposition of
headscarves on female children should be withdrawn.

1
Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – Justice and Development Party. The
governing party in the Turkish parliament since the 2002 elections.

2Religious
Vocational High Schools, that are meant to train imams but are in
practice training for any profession.

3Türkiye
Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Araştırma Kurumu – The Scientific and
Technological Research Council of Turkey.